EXPERIMENT NO -1

AIM - Introduction to Transmission Mediums.

THEORY
Transmission Medium :
The term transmission medium can also refer to the technical device which
employs the material substance to transmit or guide the waves. Thus an optical
fiber or a copper cable can be referred to as a transmission medium.
Electromagnetic radiation can be transmitted through an optical media, such as
optical fiber, or through twisted pair wires, coaxial cable, or dielectric-slab
waveguides. It may also pass through any physical material which is transparent to
the specific wavelength, such as water, air, glass, or concrete. Sound is, by
definition, the vibration of matter, so it requires a physical medium for
transmission, as does other kinds of mechanical waves and heat energy.
Historically, various aether theories were used in science and thought to be
necessary to explain the transmission medium. However, it is now known that
electromagnetic waves do not require a physical transmission medium, and so can
travel through the "vacuum" of free space. Regions of the insulative vacuum can
become conductive for electrical conduction through the presence of free electrons,
holes, or ions. The Three types of transmission medium are :1. Coaxial cable.
2. Twisted pair cable.
3. Optical Fiber cable.
Coaxial cable :
Coaxial cable is a cable consisting of an inner conductor, surrounded by a tubular
insulating layer typically made from a flexible material with a high dielectric
constant, all of which is then surrounded by another conductive layer (typically of
fine woven wire for flexibility, or of a thin metallic foil), and then finally covered
again with a thin insulating layer on the outside. The term coaxial comes from the
inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis. Coaxial
cables are often used as a transmission line for radio frequency signals. In a
hypothetical ideal coaxial cable the electromagnetic field carrying the signal exists
only in the space between the inner and outer conductors. Practical cables achieve

this objective to a high degree. A coaxial cable provides protection of signals from
external electromagnetic interference, and effectively guides signals with low
emission along the length of the cable.
Coaxial cable design choices affect physical size, frequency performance,
attenuation, power handling capabilities, flexibility, and cost. The inner conductor
might be solid or stranded; stranded is more flexible. To get better high-frequency
performance, the inner conductor may be silver plated. Sometimes copper-plated
iron wire is used as an inner conductor.
The insulator surrounding the inner conductor may be solid plastic, a foam plastic,
or may be air with spacers supporting the inner wire. The properties of dielectric
control some electrical properties of the cable. A common choice is a solid
polyethylene (PE) insulator. Lower-loss cables will use a polyethylene foam
insulator. Solid Teflon (PTFE) is also used as an insulator. Some coaxial lines use
air (or some other gas) and have spacers to keep the inner conductor from touching
the shield.
There is also a lot of variety in the shield. Conventional coaxial cable has braided
copper wire forming the shield. This allows the cable to be flexible, but it also
means there are gaps in the shield layer. It also means the inner dimension of the
shield varies slightly because the braid cannot be flat. Sometimes the braid is silver
plated. For better shield performance, some cables have a double-layer shield. The
shield might be just two braids, but it is more common now to have a thin foil
shield covered by a wire braid. Some cables may invest in more than two shield
layers. Other shield designs sacrifice flexibility for better performance; some
shields are a solid metal tube. Those cables cannot take sharp bends, as the shield
will kink, causing losses in the cable. Many Cable television (CATV) distribution
systems use such "hard line" cables, as they provide a lower signal loss.
The insulating jacket can be made from many materials. A common choice is PVC,
but some applications may require fire-resistant materials. Outdoor applications
may require the jacket to resist ultraviolet light and oxidation. For internal chassis
connections the insulating jacket may be omitted.
Connections to the ends of coaxial cables are usually made with RF connectors.

Twisted Pair Cable :

Twisted pair cabling is a form of wiring in which two conductors (two halves of a
single circuit) are wound together for the purposes of canceling out
electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources; for instance,
electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables, and crosstalk
between neighboring pairs.
Twisting wires decreases interference because the loop area between the wires
(which determines the magnetic coupling into the signal) is reduced. In balanced
pair operation, the two wires typically carry equal and opposite signals (differential
mode) which are combined by addition at the destination. The common-mode
noise from the two wires (mostly) cancel each other in this addition because the
two wires have similar amounts of EMI that are 180 degrees out of phase. This
results in the same effect as subtraction. Differential mode also reduces
electromagnetic radiation from the cable, along with the attenuation that it causes.
The twist rate (also called pitch of the twist, usually defined in twists per meter)
makes up part of the specification for a given type of cable. Where pairs are not
twisted, one member of the pair may be closer to the source than the other, and
thus exposed to slightly different induced electromotive force (EMF).
Where twist rates are equal, the same conductors of different pairs may repeatedly
lie next to each other, partially undoing the benefits of differential mode. For this
reason it is commonly specified that, at least for cables containing small numbers
of pairs, the twist rates must differ.
In contrast to FTP (foiled twisted pair) and STP (shielded twisted pair) cabling,
UTP (unshielded twisted pair) cable is not surrounded by any shielding. It is the
primary wire type for telephone usage and is very common for computer
networking, especially as patch cables or temporary network connections due to
the high flexibility of the cables.

Each pair is twisted to decrease interference.

cable with different twist rates

Unshielded twisted pair

Unshielded Twisted Pair

Twisted pair cables were first used in telephone systems by Alexander Graham
Bell in 1881. By 1900, the entire American telephone line network was either
twisted pair or open wire with similar arrangements to guard against interference.
Today, most of the millions of kilometres of twisted pairs in the world are outdoor
landlines, owned by telephone companies, used for voice service, and only handled
or even seen by telephone workers.
UTP cables are found in many ethernet networks and telephone systems. For
indoor telephone applications, UTP is often grouped into sets of 25 pairs according
to a standard 25-pair color code originally developed by AT&T. A typical subset of
these colors (white/blue, blue/white, white/orange, orange/white) shows up in most
UTP cables.
For urban outdoor telephone cables containing hundreds or thousands of pairs, the
cable is divided into smaller but identical bundles. Each bundle consists of twisted
pairs that have different twist rates. The bundles are in turn twisted together to
make up the cable. Pairs having the same twist rate within the cable can still
experience some degree of crosstalk. Wire pairs are selected carefully to minimize
crosstalk within a large cable.
UTP cable is also the most common cable used in computer networking. UTP
cables are often called ethernet cables after Ethernet, the most common data
networking standard that utilizes UTP cables. Twisted pair cabling is often used in
data networks for short and medium length connections because of its relatively
lower costs compared to optical fiber and coaxial cable.

UTP is also finding increasing use in video applications, primarily in security

cameras. Many middle to high-end cameras include a UTP output with setscrew
terminals. This is made possible by the fact that UTP cable bandwidth has
improved to match the baseband of television signals. While the video recorder
most likely still has unbalanced BNC connectors for standard coaxial cable, a
balun is used to convert from 100-ohm balanced UTP to 75-ohm unbalanced. A
balun can also be used at the camera end for ones without a UTP output. Only one
pair is necessary for each video signal.

Shielded Twisted Pair

Twisted pair cables are often shielded in attempt to prevent electromagnetic
interference. Because the shielding is made of metal, it may also serve as a ground.
However, usually a shielded or a screened twisted pair cable has a special
grounding wire added called a drain wire. This shielding can be applied to
individual pairs, or to the collection of pairs. When shielding is applied to the
collection of pairs, this is referred to as screening. The shielding must be grounded
for the shielding to work.

Screened unshielded twisted pair (S/UTP also known as FTP)

S/UTP, also known as Fully shielded (or Foiled) Twisted Pair (FTP), is a screened
UTP cable (ScTP).
Shielded twisted pair (STP or STP-A)
STP cabling includes metal shielding over each individual pair of copper wires.
This type of shielding protects cable from external EMI (electromagnetic
interferences). e.g. the 150 ohm shielded twisted pair cables defined by the IBM
Cabling System specifications and used with token ring networks.

Screened shielded twisted pair (S/STP also known as S/FTP)

S/STP cabling, also known as Screened Fully shielded Twisted Pair (S/FTP), is
both individually shielded (like STP cabling) and also has an outer metal shielding
covering the entire group of shielded copper pairs (like S/UTP). This type of
cabling offers the best protection from interference from external sources, and also
eliminates alien crosstalk.
Note that different vendors and authors use different terminology, i.e. STP has been
used to denote both STP-A, S/STP and S/UTP.

Optical Fiber Cable

An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its
length. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned
with the design and application of optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in
fiber-optic communications, which permits transmission over longer distances and
at higher data rates (a.k.a "bandwidth"), than other forms of communications.
Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less
loss, and they are immune to electromagnetic interference. Optical fibers are also
used to form sensors, and in a variety of other applications.
Light is kept in the "core" of the optical fiber by total internal reflection. This
causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers which support many propagation
paths or transverse modes are called multimode fibers (MMF). Fibers which
support only a single mode are called singlemode fibers (SMF). Multimode fibers
generally have a large-diameter core, and are used for short-distance
communication links or for applications where high power must be transmitted.
Singlemode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 200 meters.
Joining lengths of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical wire or
cable. The ends of the fibers must be carefully cleaved, and then spliced together
either mechanically or by fusing them together with an electric arc. Special
connectors are used to make removable connections.
Most high speed internet cable connections are made up of optical fiber cables.

Optical fiber communication

Optical fiber can be used as a medium for telecommunication and networking
because it is flexible and can be bundled as cables. It is especially advantageous for
long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fiber with
little attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows long distances to be
spanned with few repeaters. Additionally, the light signals propagating in the fiber
can be modulated at rates as high as 40 Gb/s (Some communication companies are
revealing that connections as fast as 1Tb/s are currently being developed. and each
fiber can carry many independent channels, each by a different wavelength of light
(wavelength-division multiplexing). Over short distances, such as networking
within a building, fiber saves space in cable ducts because a single fiber can carry

much more data than a single electrical cable. Fiber is also immune to electrical
interference, which prevents cross-talk between signals in different cables and
pickup of environmental noise. Also, wiretapping is more difficult compared to
electrical connections, and there are concentric dual core fibers that are said to be
tap-proof. Because they are non-electrical, fiber cables can bridge very high
electrical potential differences and can be used in environments where explosive
fumes are present, without danger of ignition.
Although fibers can be made out of transparent plastic, glass, or a combination of
the two, the fibers used in long-distance telecommunications applications are
always glass, because of the lower optical attenuation. Both multi-mode and
single-mode fibers are used in communications, with multi-mode fiber used mostly
for short distances (up to 500 m), and single-mode fiber used for longer distance
links. Because of the tighter tolerances required to couple light into and between
single-mode fibers (core diameter about 10 micrometers), single-mode
transmitters, receivers, amplifiers and other components are generally more
expensive than multi-mode components.

Principle of operation
An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide that transmits light along its
axis, by the process of total internal reflection. The fiber consists of a core
surrounded by a cladding layer. To confine the optical signal in the core, the
refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the cladding. The boundary
between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in step-index fiber, or gradual,
in graded-index fiber.

fiber optic audio cable

Optical fibres

Index of refraction
The index of refraction is a way of measuring the speed of light in a material. Light
travels fastest in a vacuum, such as outer space. The actual speed of light in a
vacuum is 299,792 kilometers per second, or 186,282 miles per second. Index of
refraction is calculated by dividing the speed of light in a vacuum by the speed of
light in some other medium. The index of refraction of a vacuum is therefore 1, by
definition. The typical value for the cladding of an optical fiber is 1.46. The core
value is typically 1.48. The larger the index of refraction, the more slowly light
travels in that medium.

Total internal reflection

When light traveling in a dense medium hits a boundary at a steep angle (larger
than the "critical angle" for the boundary), the light will be completely reflected.
This effect is used in optical fibers to confine light in the core. Light travels along
the fiber bouncing back and forth off of the boundary. Because the light must strike
the boundary with an angle less than the critical angle, only light that enters the
fiber within a certain range of angles can travel down the fiber without leaking out.
This range of angles is called the acceptance cone of the fiber. The size of this
acceptance cone is a function of the refractive index difference between the fiber's
core and cladding.
In simpler terms, there is a maximum angle from the fiber axis at which light may
enter the fiber so that it will propagate, or travel, in the core of the fiber. The sine
of this maximum angle is the numerical aperture (NA) of the fiber. Fiber with a
larger NA requires less precision to splice and work with than fiber with a smaller
NA. Single-mode fiber has a small NA.